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You’re Next.

Before Hurricane Sandy brought her wrath to the East Coast, my family celebrated this weekend the wedding of my little brother and my now sister-in-law! I am using the time while we still have power to blog, as Mr. Ly is using this time to battle a bear in Skyrim. I hope everyone who is in the path of Sandy is safe and sound, and mostly dry. I am particularly freaked out by the severity of the storm, but as long as I have power, I am going to use my time wisely and I need something to keep my mind busy! Recapping our last unmarried wedding as guests is the perfect distraction.

As Miss Gray Wolf recently blogged about, when you attend a wedding close to your own, you notice things that you might not take notice of otherwise. The details that, as brides, we spend hours obsessing over go unnoticed by many a wedding guest—unless you are planning your own wedding! My sister-in-law and I are very different types of brides (for one, I don’t think she’s ever been on the ‘Bee) and had very different visions for our weddings from the start. I have tried not to compare our weddings, but as you can imagine, when you have two family members getting married just three months apart, it’s hard not to. My brother’s wedding was more of your rustic/barnyard feel with lots of Mason jars and wooden touches. The venue was spectacular and my sister-in-law did a really excellent job putting her vision together!

(all photos personal)

A good shot of the venue, Pomme, set up for the ceremony, which was later transformed info the reception space

Seating chart made with an old wooden frame & chicken wire, mini clothespins holding them

Centerpieces and table numbers—Mason jars with daisies on wood that was burned by the bride

Our wedding is not rustic at all, but despite our different visions, we will have some similarities at our wedding. For one, we are using the chuppah that my sister-in-law’s father made for their wedding. How’s that for something borrowed? It’s a gorgeous structure made out wood that came from the town that my sister-in-law was named after, and covered in a tallis (Jewish prayer shawl) from my dad’s cousin. It’s a beautiful blending of families, and I will proudly marry Mr. Ly underneath it. We will be adding more flowers to the front and draping it with white fabric, but being married under the same chuppah as my brother is a great honor that I am not going to pass up!

My brother breaking the glass at the end of their ceremony

Also, some of our vendors are the same. We are using the same florist and the same DJ company. My brother had a different DJ than we do, but he still did a great job of keeping the dance floor packed all night!

Oh, and cake. What would a Lyre event be without an amazingcake? Yes, MOH Diane made my brother’s wedding cake, which was, as always, gorgeous and delicious (chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream).

Finally, as you might guess, my brother’s guest list and ours look fairly similar (at least our half of the list) and most, if not all, of our family members will be attending both of our weddings. Mr. Ly and I had a prediction of how many times we would hear “You’re next…” from our relatives and family friends. My prediction was 40 times, and Mr. Ly predicted 30. We both overshot it, but we think we heard it about 25 times, and if you count the variations or people asking us “Are you all set?” it probably would be closer to my 40. Seriously, all set? We have almost three months left, people! I just smiled and said things are coming along nicely, and tried to change the conversation. While I usually enjoy talking about our wedding plans, this weekend was neither the time or place for that. I wanted to focus this weekend on my brother and his wife, and their marriage.

We had an amazing time at my brother’s wedding—and if our wedding is even half as fun as my brother’s, we’ll be set! Let’s just hope we don’t follow suit with the natural disasters surrounding the wedding weekend—no blizzards, please!

We’re next!

Now that the weekend is over, it really has started to hit me that we are next! I had my first anxiety dream last night, which coupled with the anxiety I was already feeling about the hurricane didn’t provide the best night’s sleep. Now we’ll just have to weather the storm and see what the next few days bring. Please stay safe, bees!

Anyone else go to a wedding this weekend? Married brides—do you still compare weddings to your own after you are married?

comments

That’s so sweet that you’ll be married under the same chuppah as your brother and SIL 🙂

We just went to our last wedding as an engaged couple this past weekend, and with ours in two weeks, we tried to be as observant as possible. We even tried to visually measure the dance floor, since we haven’t ordered ours yet hahah.

We went to the wedding of close friends just two weeks after our own and I was quite relieved that I didn’t spend the whole time comparing with ours and was just able to relax and enjoy it – but I think that was mainly down to it being in different town, very different venue, largely different guest list. If it had been a family member’s wedding in the same town, I think the temptation would have been to note “So that’s how they’re doing that, etc.” constantly. But then it’s only natural I think and, as long as there are no unkind comparisons, it’s inevitable to compare.